Drug WarRant

I really enjoyed this piece by David Borden and Paul Armentano (recently posted in the Huffington Post): Why Do People the Government Says Don’t Exist Keep Writing Us?

Speaking last month to the Associated Press, Tom Riley — spokesman for the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy — launched into an all too common ad hominem attack against medical marijuana and those who advocate for its regulation. “There is a charade going on here,” he charged. “[P]eople who are interested in drug legalization using genuinely sick people as pawns to get sympathy to get their agenda through.”
This critique bemuses us. After all, we actually know medical marijuana patients — yes, real live medical marijuana patients. We interact with them at conferences. We help them organize protests. Some of us lobby with them in Congress or the state houses. Others help coordinate their legal defenses when they’ve been arrested. Many of them are our friends and colleagues too. Sure, we also want legalization, not just for medical use. But while the drug war continues to rage, we desire to have the sick and dying taken off the battlefield. Who wouldn’t?

And that last point is important. Prohibitionists (and sometimes their academic enablers) have often tried to argue that since people like us want marijuana legalized for recreational purposes, then we can’t be believed when we argue for medical marijuana legalization — that we’re only taking advantage of the sick by using them for our purposes. How absurd!
First, it is certainly possible (and quite likely) for people to sincerely hold both the opinion that patients should be allowed to use marijuana for medical purposes and that people in general should be allowed to use marijuana for recreational purposes.
Second, how are you taking advantage of sick people by wanting them to have the right to choose medicine that helps them and is recommended by their doctor?
Third, the only ones cruelly taking advantage of the sick are the people like Tom Riley, who would deny patients the medicine that helps them, who would tell patients that they can’t follow the recommendations of their doctor, who would have people suffer in order to prop up marijuana prohibition.

As the silly season of Presidential campaigning kicks off in high gear, it was good to have Lewis Black remind me of how it works (yes, it was an old rerun of his comedy special, but it still connected).

You see, in our two-party system, the Democrats are the party of no ideas and the Republicans are the party of bad ideas. It usually goes something like this. A Republican will stand up in Congress and say, “I’ve got a really bad idea.” And a Democrat will immediately jump to his feet and declare, “And I can make it sh*ttier!”

Certainly fits the drug war.

Alex Koppelman has a pretty good piece in Salon detailing: How the anti-immigration right — and Lou Dobbs — turned two rogue Border Patrol agents into heroes and got Congress on their side.
The Ramos/Compean saga has always been primarily an immigration tabloid story — a bent tool for drumming up outrage. Where it has been relevant to drug policy is in the publicly voiced assumption that shooting an unarmed drug suspect is somehow uncontroversial (an assumption bizarrely even held by Senator Feinstein). People are so used to drug war exceptions to every Constitutional right, that they are amazed that shooting an unarmed marijuana smuggler in the back is still illegal in this country.

Thanks to Tom for sending me this extraordinary piece…
From the SFGate: Law enforcement team raids projects to net alleged drug dealers by John Koopman (a reporter who is embedded with the police)
Now I’m not sure about Koopman — he’s either an opportunistic hack with a flair for over-the-top clichÚd imagery, or he’s a brilliantly subtle writer who is pleasing his ride-along companions while exposing them as buffoons simultaneously. Because anybody with a brain reading this puff piece about a drug sting has got to come away convinced by its utter futility and stupidity.

The sun peeks over the hill at Candlestick Point to the east, casting Ingleside in a warm glow.
“Somebody’s going to jail today,” predicts Lt. Ernie Ferrando, head of the Gang Task Force.

Yeah. The whole article is like that.

Violence has spiked recently in the Ingleside area. The Police Department wants to send a message, and it will be delivered by cops with guns and battering rams.

Because nothing sends a message about spiking violence than adding more violence. But of course, this is different. This is violence that will make the other violence stop. Why?

“I suppose it’s a little like being a dad,” Ferrando says. “The kids have been bad. It’s time for Dad to step in and settle things down.”

I’m sure that’s how the drug dealers see it.
Go ahead and read the whole thing. It’s a marvel of writing — the use of the word “thwack” for the battering ram. And breathless moments like this one:

But what, or who, is inside? The first cop in will find out, one way or another.
The cops rush in, one right behind the other, like a big blue clump.

So how did this violent confrontation end? Did they get all the bad guys?

The cops are coming out of the two apartments. At one unit, the person named in the warrant is not home. The police find nothing inside. No guns. No drugs. They do find gang graffiti, though. Some of it links a young man the cops know to a local gang. With the city attorney’s office turning more and more to civil injunctions to help break up gangs, this is considered a good haul for the morning. […]
At the home with the now-broken door, three people are led out in handcuffs. They sit on the front stoop while the officers search the house. No guns are found, but the cops do find a small amount of drugs.

Did the thwack of the battering ram make the streets safer? Will the clump of blue find another door to attack? Tune in next week to the long-running soap opera: The Dumb and the Clueless.

by Amy Lorentzen, Associated Press Writer
Link

GLADBROOK, Iowa – Republican presidential hopeful John McCain on Sunday said the United States should step up it’s war on drugs as part of efforts to secure the country’s borders.

Yes, it’s a twofer. McCain for being a moron. Lorentzen for not knowing how to spell “its.”
Later on in the article, another stupidity twofer as McCain talks about building walls and fences on the borders…

“I don’t think you’ll every [sic] prevent anybody [sic] from coming across, but I think we can do a whole lot more.”

Some days, I can’t tell the difference between real life and Idiocracy.

Document the well-intentioned cluelessness of the following two authors:
“bullet” Willy E. Gutman in the Santa Clarita Valley Signal: Drugs: The War No One Wants to Win
“bullet” Philosophy professor Firmin DeBrabander in CounterPunch: Drug Wars: From Afghanistan to Baltimore

I’ll be on the road this weekend, but will be checking in from time to time.
“bullet” Humboldt County (CA) Board of Supervisors sent legislators and President Bush a letter urging legalization of marijuana

“Local governments are in need of identifying stable revenue sources and could benefit greatly from the legalization and taxation of marijuana”

“bullet” Sex, Drugs, and a Federal Prosecution – Radley Balko’s latest column at FOX news.
“bullet” Action Alert: Take action now to roll back the crack/powder sentencing disparities.
“bullet” Action Alert: Take action now on the medical marijuana implementation in New Mexico.
“bullet” Drug Sense Weekly

Jeralyn at TalkLeft notes the Department of Justice is complaining that it is hurting for funds.
Funny. Given the fact that they continually waste money prosecuting medical marijuana suspects in California and tons of small-time drug dealers — heck, they even prosecuted Ed Rosenthal a second time, knowing that the longest sentence they could get was one day he had already served — it appeared to me that the DOJ was so rich they didn’t know what to do with all their money.

Ian Welsh over at The Agonist has an interesting post about Afghanistan and opium and notes the Senlis option

It’s simple. It’d work. But of course since drugs are EVIL, such a common sense solution will never be adopted. It’s interesting to ask why – are Americans, and indeed Europeans, really so inflexible, so indoctrinated with hatred of “drugs”, that they can’t do what it takes to win? […]
the Afghan opium problem is just another example of how we insist, in the face of failure, on doing the same thing that already failed, over and over again.

Chicago Dyke at Corrente follows up on it and gives this fascinating thought:

Legalization, in some form or another, is going to happen. It‰s simply a matter of time. No matter how entrenched the Drug War MIC establishment, eventually it‰s going to be so ugly, corrupt and not effectual that taxpayers around the world will say, “enough.” […]
I just had a conversation with a friend, and I reminded him: it‰s always a good time to advocate sensible drug policy/legalization. Always. That is, as far as that political battle goes, our side is always going to lose. Pushing for drug legalization is a guaranteed no-go, as far as causes are concerned. Until that day that it is not.

“bullet” Give peace a chance. Forget the war on drugs by Anatole Kaletsky in the Times Online (UK)

a ceasefire in the war against drugs would at least give peace a chance Ö not only in Afghanistan, but also in the streets of Britain.

“bullet” War on Drugs Long-Lost Cause by Michael Jones in the Albuquergue Journal (NM)

The tipping point will be reached when people are tired of the abuses of civil rights by the criminal justice system and by the continued endangerment of the nation’s youth by the maintenance of a black market system of drug distribution.

“bullet” The drugs strategies don’t work in The Statesman (Ghana)

The Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 must be one of the least effective pieces of legislation ever enacted. […]
Cannabis is an example of the nonsenses created by the 1971 act”s simplistic classification system. Stronger types of cannabis are now on sale, we are told, and research shows a link with schizophrenia.
This is like saying Chablis should be banned because cognac is much stronger and because some people become alcoholics, with dire effects on themselves, their families and society.